Sacrilege
by bloodysherlock
Summary: A meeting of damaged minds can lead to new beginnings. Priscilla Rose has suffered greatly and remains alone in her thoughts and darkness. Arkham Asylum is her new home and she is slipping further away from hope...until someone gives her the possibility of getting it back. Rated T for now, J. Crane x OC.
1. Restless

There is no greater feeling than the end of a grand performance. That split second of stillness after the final note or move, the hesitation of the crowd to break the feeling of silent peace. Priscilla Rose savored that fleeting moment.

The warm and well-earned beads of sweat glistened on her heavily made up face like diamonds. Ballet was always her passion and now it was finally worth something. She was alone onstage, wearing a crown of pride and roses and was lifted by the sound of the applause only for her...applause...joyful yelling...hooting...yelling...

* * *

She awoke in a cold sweat.

Her parents were arguing again. Over her, no doubt. For an eleven-year-old she was fairly intuitive.

She gingerly pushed the threadbare blanket away. The fibers scratched her mottled hands, the hands of a working girl, not a ballerina. She wrinkled her nose.

As she tiptoed the short distance to the door, she could make out the abrasive shouts coming from below.

"...Daniel I will not let you bring this family down you lazy shit!"

(Loud crash)

"Carmen, I am trying as hard as i can. I work three jobs and please lower your voice..Listen, we can work this ou-"

"I am _pregnant_ with your child who we are _NOT_ ready for and we have that burden upstairs who will never amount to anyth-"

"Little Rosie is NOT A _BURDEN_. She doesn't need you telling her that every single fucking day."

(Loud slap)

"YOU WERE THE ONE WHO DECIDED ON HER FUCKING NAME. PRISCILLA SOUNDS LIKE A SPOILED BRAT WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THAT LITTLE BITCH IS. I DO EVERYTHING FOR HER AND SHE DOESN'T EVEN WORK HARD IN SCHOOL. DO YOU SEE HER REPORT CARDS AND HOW SHE CLAIMS THE LETTERS MOVE WHEN SHE READS?! Did YOU put the idea of being 'dyslexic' into her head, Daniel? BULLSHIT!

(Silence)

* * *

She pulled back from the door. A sudden feeling of nausea and shame brought her to knees on the cold wood floor. She didn't need to hear any more of the argument. It was always the same. Bitter tears leaked out of her squinted eyes and made little paths on her gaunt cheeks as they fell. Burden.

She wished she had some kind of small and soft toy to cling to for comfort, like the kind she saw on TV, but looking around her room, all she saw was emptiness and shadows.

"I swear I just heard something." Daniel Rose murmured. As he tried to glance over towards the front door, he felt a cold, unfeeling hand wrench his face forward.

The glazed-over green eyes he was forced to look at were empty.

"Listen to me Daniel and stop daydreaming. No wonder you can't hold a job for more than a few months...no ambition, you lazy-"

"_GODDAMNIT_ CARMEN!" Daniel bellowed. "I think there's someone outside and this is not a good area. Could you please-"

"It was YOUR IDEA to live in the fucking NARROWS. YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOUR UNDER THE TABLE DEALS AND YOUR ASSOCIATIONS WITH DANGEROUS PEOPLE?! ARE YOU INVOLVED WITH FALCO-"

"MY idea?! So you think we had a choice? You live in a dream world. That's

it. I am taking Pris-"

Something made him stop.

Gunshots outside. The crackle of fire.

Both parents eyes widened as they realized what was happening.

_Falcone._

It took one second for the door to be kicked in, splintering on its creaky hinges. One blast from a shotgun brought both Daniel and Carmen to their knees, one of them leaking from the heart and the other from their eyes.

Carmen Rose reached out for her dying husband in a last moment of compassion and was halted by another shot.

Both frozen with the image of their daughter upstairs left to fend for herself.

* * *

THREE YEARS LATER

* * *

The foster home got terribly cold at night in Gotham City. Priscilla found herself awake from another nightmare...one filled with fire and emptiness.

Phantom hands grabbed at her in the night and whispered on her cold skin.

_Nothing_ was more terrorizing than the dark recesses of her mind and her threadbare memories. One day they would come together and consume her.

She would watch the shadows dance on the walls for many a night until a fluorescent light chased them away.

Priscilla was being dragged by the cold talons of Miss Durer into the reception area before she could process what was happening.

"Before you open that hussy mouth of your and waste my time, I'll be the bearer of glad tidings."

They had stopped right before the front hallway. Rosie had once heard of a creature that could paralyze its prey by looking them in the eye. She didn't give Miss Dodder the chance. The unsubstantial contents of her tiny stomach threatened to explode at the mention of "good news."

Miss Dodder seemed to need no input from Rosie to continue.

"You've finally been adopted and I will never have to see your slutty little face ever again."

The smile that followed was a blur of yellow teeth and lipstick stains that sent Rosie into a state of shock. She collapsed onto the ugly orphanage floor, weightless.

Rosie wished she had died on that ugly floor in the company of misery.

The orphanage was torturous but it was a source of routine. It kept her from thinking and those thoughts that threatened to come out were made of poison.

But she didn't die there. She died the moment she laid eyes on her new foster father, the man who would torture her for three years until she finally escaped with battle scars on her heart and on her face, running from her cheekbone to her chin.

* * *

The time after she ran away and escaped was a time of denial and foolishness.

She pretended she left home by her own accord and not because of a mentally damaged foster dad. The people she met at seventeen turned her into a happy alter ego, pushing reality further back into her mind.

This way of living lasted until she was halted on the night of her 21st birthday.

"Ladies I'm going to take a breather outside. Any of you want to-"

Rosie realized that no one was actually listening anymore. She shrugged it off and smiled as she maneuvered her way through the upscale suburban club and to the glass double doors. She paused outside.

Was she having a good time?

Wait. Of course she was! It was her birthday present after all… Right?

She plastered on a pretty smile, adjusted her borrowed dress and stepped just outside the club.

Priscilla underestimated the darkness outside. It was overpowering. And the streets were relatively quiet. That never happened.

Mental images began to threaten her out in the quiet dark and started to surface. Rosie clapped her hands over her ears and tried to drown it out. Fun.

She was having fun. Those nightmares weren't real at all.

She reached up to touch her scar...the one that she couldn't remember getting...

A large hand grabbed her wrist.

"Remember me, little pretty Priscilla? I've missed you..." The scent of rotten cologne drowned her nostrils and the smoothness of his voice chafed her eardrums.

She didn't look at the large man who was looming over her.

"I don't know you, mister. I'll be going back inside now. If you'll just-"

He had her hand in a vise-like grip and she got a good look at him.

She felt her scar tingle. He had called her by name.

Him.

He had the look of a respectable gentleman had it not been for his eyes. Desensitized and manic. Eyes that intimidated his employees and watched her when she was sleeping.

She knew him.

The next moment was a blur as Priscilla started to remember herself and her attacker.

His name was Doctor Roderick Carlisle and he was her old foster father.

* * *

"Miss Priscilla Rose is found not guilty of the death of Dr. Roderick Carlisle on the terms of insanity. She will be placed in the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane where she will stay indefinitely."

Murmurs spread around the courtroom.

"I heard she just snapped! Why stab the poor fellow's back with his own self defense weapon and then leave a huge gash on his face?! Outrageous! Didn't her father work for Falcone? What a sick puppy..."

"To think that caring doctor took that little girl in and she ran off only to kill him three years later! Such a tragedy. Roderick was a gentleman..."

"Look at her over there! Have you ever seen a prettier face gone to waste?

I bet she did that gash on her face to get off on it...sick people these days!"

The sounds of the courtroom and nudges of her lawyer fell on deafened ears.

Priscilla was numb. The coldness of her memories had finally caught up to her.

Jeffrey Hansen, her lawyer, was trying to speak to her.

She didn't say anything anymore.

Silence was the way to stop her emotions, to keep her madness locked behind a blank faced gate.

Time at the Asylum would change nothing.

Just more time for her to be prodded further into her mind with no intention of getting out.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hello everyone! This is my first story and note on a fic so I'll keep this short. I hope you enjoyed, please R&R if you enjoyed it! An update will come soon but feedback will speed it up!

Disclaimer nonsense: I own NOTHING from Batman or Christopher Nolan's genius, thought I WISH I did! Thank you! I only own my OCs and their demented minds.

xx CC


	2. Nervous

Misery.

That was the only word that surfaced in Priscilla's mind. It hovered in the stagnantly dry cell air above her mop of blond hair, now browned with a lack of a good shower. She reached up to touch it and pull on a strand, a nervous habit acquired over time.

Why hadn't she had any visitors? After the press has accosted her on the solemn car ride there, and she was escorted to her lonely cell by two intimidating and tired looking guards, she had yet to see a familiar face. She had yet to have anyone say one word to her. Her throat itched to call out, create a scene, any kind of human interaction.

Priscilla was never one to be observant but her situation forced her to lap up her surroundings with hungry green eyes that appeared ghostly in the dimness. A change of scene...anything to stop her thoughts from leaking out.

Misery.

The color scheme of her cell reminded her of Gotham City, shades of blinding white and dirty gray with the occasional pollution of dirt and dust. Her clothes matched it, a scratchy dress uniform of sorts that itched and itched and itched.

There was no window to let a breeze in, and dirty glass walls leading to the main hallway obscured figures walking by in flashes of gray.

A dingy hum from above indicated a flickering light, blinking at her from the ceiling like the eye of God. Priscilla glared at it, hoping the force of her gaze would cause it to stop.

It remained.

Rosie shivered and tried to relax on her cot before the reality of her situation fell on her.

The blinking continued, always watching.

* * *

Scott Hampton was a nervous fellow with a nervous countenance. Working at the asylum had added multiple anxieties to his growing list but it kept him from unemployment, which would most likely set him over the edge.

He walked with hesitant footsteps down the white hallways, always cautious to listen for an extra pair of footfalls. In all his five years there he had yet to experience a breakout, but being cautious could not hurt anyone, he thought, his fingers twitching towards the pistol attached to his hip.

Hampton clutched at the papers in his hand as he approached the main source of his apprehension. The blurred glass door with imposing gold symbols haunted him every day but there was no escaping Doctor Jonathan Crane.

Most days when Scott hesitated outside the door Crane would laugh, or cough, it was hard to tell, before calling him in. All without turning his head. Could he smell fright? His eyes certainly matched those of a predator, the ice cold background of his night terrors. Never faltering, never losing control. Perhaps the thick black hair that Crane always slicked back concealed an extra eye.

A frigid voice sneered from inside. "You're late."

Hampton threw open the door with his free hand and staggered in the impeccable office in a panic. The commanding presence positioned at his desk in the corner appeared bored, perhaps a bit bothered. But a more cautious observer could see past his rectangle eyeglasses and detect malice in his eyes.

A drop of sweat ran down the back of the victim's bald head.

"Mr. Hampton, you look as if you've seen a ghost." Dr. Crane's full lips quirked up at the edges, a contrast to his seemingly concerned tone. He never smiled fully, perhaps to conceal canine teeth.

Scott stammered out, "G-good afternoon Doctor. H-here are the recent updates on all of the patients..." He handed Crane the papers, who took them as if they were covered in dirt. Hands free, Scott laced his fingers together as a source of security.

"...a-and the camera for the new patient, 22...23A-"

"24B," Jonathan dictated. He enunciated each syllable as if speaking to a small child.

"24B is set up. S-so you can c-carry on with your...b-business."

Scott wanted to smack himself in the face. 'Distressed minds cannot communicate properly,' he recalled reading in one of Crane's books. Who were the true patients here?

When Scott refocused on the Doctor he was completely focused on the 24B screen behind him, that girl he had heard about on the news.

"Mr. Hampton if you are capable of leaving, please do, so I can...'carry on with my business'." Crane's condescending and arrogant tone sliced through Scott's reverie and he shot out of the room as quick as his feet would let him.

Even though Crane was in his own office Scott could still feel eyes on him while walking down the research hall.

Always watching.

* * *

(A/N) Hello again readers! I apologize for the two weeks of waiting, you guysare the best! Thank you for the reviews and follows so early on, they are MUCH

appreciated! Please R&R or PM me if you want to talk, I'm all ears for ideas and(deep inhale) critical comments. This chapter is a bit short but that means the next one will be longer and have more Crane goodness :)

Disclaimer: I don't own DC Comics or Batman or Doctor Crane..(single tear)

More Crane to come in the next chapter!

Xx CC


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